Learning Strategies

Recent Posts - page 31

• Parachutes, by Kelly Yang

  By ljd42 on September 8, 2021

  Helicopter parents. Tiger moms. Parachutes. What do all these metaphors have in common? If you’ve taught in a suburb like Weston—or in an elite private school—you may know the answer. I certainly knew about helicopter parents, having experienced altogether too… Read More ›

• Emoji and hand gestures

  By ljd42 on September 7, 2021

  There’s a lot of misinformation about emoji(s) floating around. Aside from the question of whether the plural is “emojis” or “emoji,” we have plenty of people who think the word is etymologically related to “emoticon” and “emo”—but it’s not! The… Read More ›

• Dim sum brunch at Chau Chow!

  By ljd42 on September 5, 2021

  Barbara and I just got back from brunch at Chau Chow, which has finally re-opened for dine-in dim sum—weekends only for now, and no carts, just ordering from the menu. This is actually an interesting trade-off, as carts let you… Read More ›

• Morning glories!

  By ljd42 on September 3, 2021

  Morning glories for a glorious morning after the storm has passed!

• (Re)Born in the USA: An Englishman’s love letter to his chosen home, by Roger Bennett

  By ljd42 on September 2, 2021

  “Tracy Chapman saved my life.” That’s the dramatic opening sentence of Chapter 32 of Roger Bennett’s terrific memoir of his life in Liverpool and his decision to emigrate to the USA and become a naturalized American citizen. As a middle-class… Read More ›

• Zoe Rosenthal is not Lawful Good, by Nancy Werlin

  By ljd42 on August 31, 2021

  A shout-out to Aaron Gacs for teaching me what a character alignment chart is! That was four or five years ago. If he hadn’t done that, I would never have understood the title of this captivating novel. If, as the… Read More ›

• Fake news! (Is it clickbait? Or have archaeologists discovered the Trojan Horse? Judge for yourself!)

  By ljd42 on August 29, 2021

  Did you believe in Santa Claus when you were a kid? How about the Bible? God? The Norse gods? Satan? Zeus? Evolution? Grimm’s fairy tales? The quadratic formula? The Trojan War? Everything your parents told you? Everything your teachers told… Read More ›

• A Prime Mistake

  By ljd42 on August 27, 2021

  To be sure, nine, along with three and seven, are great favorites of European folklore. No one knows for sure why just those numerals achieved such prominence. The reference to the fact that all of them are primes does not go far.  So says… Read More ›

• Visiting all 2563 train stations in the UK!

  By ljd42 on August 25, 2021

  We all know now that Dorchester’s own Maya Jonas-Silver is the new world record holder for visiting every single station on the Green, Blue, Orange and Red Lines in the shortest time; it took her 7 hours, 4 minutes, and… Read More ›

• Easttown? Where’s that? And what (or who) is Mare? And what’s so special about the Philly accent?

  By ljd42 on August 23, 2021

  Four questions in that headline—and it isn’t even Passover. You may or may not know that the distinguished linguist John McWhorter’s wonderful podcast Lexicon Valley recently moved from Slate to BookSmart. Not that you care. But what you do (or… Read More ›

• A return to Venice: Transient Desires, by Donna Leon

  By ljd42 on August 21, 2021

  Venezia! La Serenissima! Two and a half years ago was when I most recently reviewed one of Donna Leon’s many Venetian novels. That was The Temptation of Forgiveness. Somehow I had missed Unto Us a Son is Given, which came… Read More ›

• A Meh Landmark

  By ljd42 on August 19, 2021

  After a couple of friends had enthusiastically recommended the pizza at the Landmark Public House in Adams Village, a.k.a. Adams Corner, Barbara and I decided to try it. We lucked into an open parking space right on Minot St. at… Read More ›

• Fake news? Or not? Jigsaw puzzles improve cognitive functioning in seniors!

  By ljd42 on August 18, 2021

  Not high-school seniors. Not college seniors. Seniors as in senior citizens—old people—like me. We all know (don’t we?) that solving crossword puzzles and playing games like Scrabble can supposedly help stave off Alzheimer’s by keeping the left side of the… Read More ›

• Infinity is not a number. (Or is it?)

  By ljd42 on August 16, 2021

  Yes, students have trouble with infinity. And with zero. The great James Propp has written an in-depth essay about conceptual and linguistic issues with infinity and zero. Concrete examples are always best. Propp offers eight ways in which a student… Read More ›

• Fortune Favors the Dead, by Stephen Spotswood

  By ljd42 on August 14, 2021

  No, this is not another Nero Wolfe pastiche that lamely tries to follow Rex Stout’s formula. In Fortune Favors the Dead, written in 2020, author Stephen Spotswood has created two new and very original characters who vividly come to life… Read More ›

• The so-called SmartPhone trap: Is it real?

  By ljd42 on August 11, 2021

  Confirmation bias strikes again! Maybe I’m being unfair to myself. But I admit that I started reading this New York Times piece with a two-fold bias: The “guest essay” in the Times is titled “This is our chance to pull… Read More ›

• עס און עס

  By ljd42 on August 8, 2021

  No, that’s not Hebrew in the title of this post. Yes, it is written in the Hebrew alphabet. The alphabet is Hebrew, but the language is not—it’s Yiddish. You can’t tell it from the name of the restaurant as shown… Read More ›

• Guilt at the Garage, by Simon Brett

  By ljd42 on August 6, 2021

  A mystery in a small seaside village in England. Sounds like Agatha Christie, right? Well, yes, it does sound like Christie. But it’s actually Simon Brett. Guilt at the Garage is a conventional English village mystery. Now don’t interpret “conventional”… Read More ›

• “They Might be Linguists.” Linguists—not giants???

  By ljd42 on August 3, 2021

  You all do know the band They Might Be Giants (TMBG), don’t you? But you might not know my personal connection with them. The connection is that John Flansburgh and John Linnell, founders of TMBG from Lincoln, MA, were students… Read More ›

• Remember the ’60s and the ’70s? WBCN and the American Revolution

  By ljd42 on July 31, 2021

  The ’60s and the the ’70s were formative years for many of us. A must-see film recently illuminated these decades through the lens of the story of WBCN, a.k.a. The American Revolution. Perhaps I need to point out a couple… Read More ›

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